Amazon to produce Tour De France series focusing on work of Orica-Scott chef Hannah Grant

Amazon has announced that it is to produce a series about Orica-Scott chef Hannah Grant’s endeavours during this year’s Tour de France. The series, which will be available for streaming via Prime Video, will focus on the various riders and the food that keeps them going.

The author of The Grand Tour Cookbook, Grant has been a Tour de France chef for six years, originally with Tinkoff-Saxo before switching to Orica-Scott this year.

The still-unnamed documentary series – which will be available later this year or early next year – is based on her book and follows her as she feeds the team’s nine riders for three weeks from a food truck.

She recently told Esquire that her early days in the sport, trying to introduce whole-food, healthy cooking, were a major shock for some of the riders.

“They were used to white pasta, ketchup, and grilled chicken every single day. They were like, "Where's the ketchup? What the fuck is this brown rice? What is this quinoa thing?"

However, the Dane says that her food is not just fuel for the riders. “It can be anti-bacterial, anti-inflammatory. You can speed up recovery or kick down beginning colds and small illness. There's a lot you can do with food without the riders feeling like they're eating something super healthy and hippy-style.”

Amazon has described the series as an “unprecedented intersection of sports, travel, and food.”

Although she says her job is at times “like having nine kids from different countries,” she clearly relishes the challenge.

“It shouldn't be a punishment to eat right and fuel correctly,” she says. “The riders are people, too, they have minds and they have emotions, so there's a lot to take into consideration when cooking for a bunch of guys who are pushed to the max at all times.

“The visual part is very important. The comfort food part, of course, towards the end of the race. When they go halfway through the tour they start to lose their appetites, and you've got to keep them eating. It's about making it interesting. The variation is super important.”

She also believes that the riders’ diets are based around principles that can be applied by everyone. “Endurance athletes are very similar to the normal person—it's just an extreme version.”